His whole face seemed golden indeed with his short hair curling over his forehead and his splendid yellow beard.
His neck was as straight as a column and his immense chest was wide enough for a woman to sleep across it.

His shoulders and sculptured arms seemed to have been copied from a giant's statue in some museum.
You could see his muscles swelling, mountains of flesh rippling and hardening under the skin; his shoulders, his chest, his neck expanded; he seemed to shed light about him, becoming beautiful and all-powerful like a kindly god.
He had now swung Fifine twenty times, his eyes always fixed on the iron, drawing a deep breath with each blow, yet showing only two great drops of sweat trickling down from his temples.

He counted: "Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three--" Calmly Fifine continued, like a noble lady dancing.
"What a show-off!" jeeringly murmured Salted-Mouth, otherwise Drink-without-Thirst.
Gervaise, standing opposite Goujet, looked at him with an affectionate smile.

_Mon Dieu!_ What fools men are! Here these two men were, pounding on their bolts to pay court to her.

She understood it.